August 23, 2013

"The A2s are the little speakers that not only could but do" - Marc Mickelson, The Audio Beat

"...amazingly potent and at the same time refined..."

Marc Mickelson of The Audio Beat was simply chuffed with his review pair of Paradigm SHIFT A2 powered speakers. Now that his review has been published, we are the ones who are simply chuffed! If you're in the market for powered speakers, we highly recommend you give his review a read. Need to be enticed? Here are some of the memorable quotes..."...the A2s simply don't sound like the small speakers they are. They project sound into the listening space like a pair of bigger, more robust speakers, even like a pair of small floorstanders. This alone will impress some listeners -- they present an aural-visual illusion as the music projects out of their small cabinets. However, it's the quality of that sound, not just its stature, that makes the A2s truly special little speakers.""With the A2s, however, I had a different goal: to hear how big these little speakers could sound, including down into the bass, which should be a true weakness... but the A2s more than ably captured the low-end grunt... which is so vital to the song's brooding character."

"Ask the A2s to belt out a cut that has real force behind it, and they will certainly try -- and they may surprise with what they accomplish. This happened to me more than a few times."

"...the A2s proved they could not only cast an impressively larger-than-expected soundstage, they were tonally convincing while doing it. They had a measure of fullness in the midrange and sounded more solid than airy into the treble, achieving a sense of balance that is so often the domain of much more expensive speakers."

"...at normal and even loud levels, the A2s sound amazingly potent and at the same time refined, disappearing like small speakers can yet sounding like more than the small speakers they are."

"...good-looking, well-designed..."

"...when in the future you decide to upgrade (as we all do), you'll have a speaker that's easy to repurpose. For the heck of it, I did just that for some 2.0 home theater and the improvement over the TV's speakers was -- no surprise -- remarkable. So when you're seemingly done with the A2s in your audio system, they won't be ready for the garage sale..."

"For their sub-$600 price, you get a good-looking, well-designed pair of speakers that requires nothing more than a source with volume control, be that a computer, TV, gaming system, or iPod. But if your goals are more sonically ambitious, the A2s can take their place within an audiophile-approved two-channel system with equal assurance, sounding more robust, more balanced, and more extended down low than their physical size or price would suggest."

" 'For the Way You Play' indeed. The A2s are the little speakers that not only could but do."